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PCRM Warns Race Fans about Hot Dog Risks

Race fans got a stark warning on their way into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in July. PCRM’s billboard outside the speedway featured an image of hot dogs sticking out of a cigarette pack emblazoned with the skull and crossbones. It reads: “Warning: Hot dogs can wreck your health.”

Hundreds of media outlets across the world covered the billboard, including USA Today, The View, The Daily Show, and The Howard Stern Show.

“A hot dog a day could send you to an early grave,” says PCRM nutrition education director Susan Levin, M.S., R.D. “Processed meats like hot dogs increase your risk for diabetes, heart disease, and various types of cancer. Like cigarettes, hot dogs should come with a warning label that helps racing fans and other consumers understand the health risk.”

Last year at the Indianapolis 500 race, concession stands at the speedway served more than 1.1 million hot dogs. According to the American Institute for Cancer Research, just one 50-gram serving of processed meat (about the amount in one hot dog) consumed daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer, on average, by 21 percent. Every year about 143,000 Americans are diagnosed with colorectal cancer and approximately 53,000 die of it.